The year 2023 holds few certainties, but financial crimes and scams will be among next year’s sure bets.
The past year has seen any number of headlines and breathtaking heists that spotlight how creative bad actors have become, how they’ve fine-tuned their scams and schemes to follow the money and take it away from innocent victims — individuals, families and businesses among them.
Emerging from the pandemic, all things — especially payments — have skewed digital and faster. Cryptocurrency-related crimes, like the one in which the Department of Justice (DOJ) is in the midst of investigating a Nov. 11 crypto hack of FTX that garnered $372 million right on the heels of the firm’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, are only among the “splashiest” of crimes.
Full Scope Yet Unknown
We won’t know the full tally of what the financial cost was in 2022 for a while, and the holiday season, as always, provides fertile ground for fraud. In a nod to how global financial crime has become, headed into the end of the year, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it has issued over 1,800 warnings about potential scam firms so far in 2022, 400 more than the previous year.
Perhaps no surprise, demographics and the use of technology play a role in who gets targeted. Younger consumers, and the ones wielding devices to get all manner of everyday financial tasks done, are especially at risk. According to the Consumer Protection Data Spotlight report from the Federal…
